Cesare Segre (4 April 1928 – 16 March 2014) was an Italian philologist, semiotician and literary critic of Jewish descent, and the Director of the Texts and Textual Traditions Research Centre of the Institute for Advanced Studies of Pavia (IUSS).

He lived and studied in Turin, where he was awarded his degree in 1950, a pupil of Benvenuto Terracini and famous uncle Santorre Debenedetti.

He collaborated with numerous academic magazines and journals, among which: Studi di filologia italiana, Cultura neolatina, L'Approdo letterario; he has also been the editor of Paragone; director with Maria Corti, D'Arco Silvio Avalle and Dante Isella, of Strumenti critici; co-director of Medioevo romanzo (of which he was also one of the founders) and the series Critica e filologia published by Feltrinelli.

Segre was married to Maria Luisa Meneghetti (born 1950), also a professor of Romance philology, at the University of Milan.

With his important research, Segre has contributed to the introduction of formalist and structural theories in Italian literary critique.